Hong Kong residents evacuated after WWII bomb is found

Hong Kong
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On Tuesday hundreds of people were evacuated from a neighborhood in Hong Kong after a World War II bomb was found at a construction site.

According to Raw Story (via AFP), Hong Kong authorities evacuated 200 people from nearby apartments and offices. Additionally, police closed local roadways so the bomb could be transported to a safe location to be detonated.

This was done as a cautionary measure to ensure no one was injured while the ordnance was destroyed.

“I believe that if it actually did explode (accidentally), people nearby would have been injured,” Hong Kong police chief inspector Peter Ip told AFP. “Because the bomb had been fired before, it was very unstable.”

The munitions was a 1941-era Japanese, reported Hong Kong publication, The Standard.

According to Business Ghana, the bomb had a diameter of 15 centimeters.

The Standard reported the bomb was placed in a trench and safety detonated, sending debris, shell fragments and smoke into the air.

It is not uncommon to find WW II-era munitions in the area since there was heavy fighting in this region in 1941. According to The Standard, Ip also said a "number of wartime explosives have been discovered" in this section of Hong Kong.

Over the past several months Digital Journal reported two other bomb finds caused evacuations in order for safe detonations to take place. In Dec. 2011, 45,000 individuals were evacuated in a German city and in March 2012 1,500 were evacuated in a port city in France.